


Gingerbread

by persephone_garnata



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Baking, But mostly fluff, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Post-Series, gingerbread, little bit of ptsd and abusive parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:10:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persephone_garnata/pseuds/persephone_garnata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica wants to get Trish something special for Christmas, but can't think what. Then a candy store window display and a memory from their shared past gives her an idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gingerbread

Gingerbread

 

                Trish and Jessica spent a long, happy afternoon making that gingerbread house. First the baking, then the decorating – carefully piping the frosting, decorating with candies, sprinkling over the powdered sugar to look like a dusting of snow. They even made a family of gingerbread people – complete with a gingerbread dog – to live in it, and posed them outside their home sweet home next to a gingerbread Christmas tree.

                Dorothy watched them, occasionally intervening to stop Trish eating the candies – ‘They’re for decorating, not for eating’ – but mostly leaving them to it.

                Then the photographer from the magazine arrived, and they posed next to their creation. Patsy Walker and her mother and adopted sister and the happy gingerbread family, all together in the kitchen. Festive and delicious.

                ‘Excellent work girls,’ said Dorothy, clasping her hands together. ‘It’s as pretty as a Christmas card.’

                ‘When do we get to eat it?’ asked Jessica, and Trish flashed her a pleading look.

                Dorothy’s smile became fixed. ‘Eat it?’ she said, and laughed, without humor. ‘It’s not for eating, Jessica. All that sugar…’ She shuddered. ‘Think how Fatsy would look if she ate all that! No, we’ll keep it until the twelve days are up, and then we’ll throw it out. Now, I must call the magazine to make sure they’re going to run the picture as a double-page spread…’

                She swept out of the room. Trish hung her head. ‘You had to ask…’

                Jessica touched her arm, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

***

 

                The Christmas after Jessica killed Kilgrave was the first holiday season in a long time without feeling the influence of that creep over her, one way or another. Jessica felt like the sky had finally cleared after a long period of dark, heavy clouds, and the sun had started to show again.

It hadn’t yet warmed her. But perhaps, eventually, it would.

She didn’t feel much like doing anything for Christmas, but Trish more or less forced her to come and stay with her so they could be together on the day. Her old room had been turned into a Krav Maga studio, but that didn’t matter – there was plenty of room in Trish’s giant-size bed for them both. Not that they used all that space – they slept curled up together, like they had done as teenagers when one or both of them needed comfort.

Jess struggled to think of what she could get Trish as a Christmas present – it’s never easy to buy something for somebody much richer than you are, and she knew she wanted to get her something special. By Christmas Eve she still had no idea. Then, while Trish was at the radio station, doing her festive special Trish Talk show (mostly talking about whether you should tell children the truth about Santa Claus), Jessica wandered down a random street, and went past a candy store.

And in the window of the candy store were gingerbread houses. Dozens of them, each one unique. A whole gingerbread village, covered in sugary snow. And Jessica remembered that long-ago Christmas when she and Trish had made the gingerbread house together, and then watched it slowly go stale until Dorothy squirted bleach on it and put it in the trash. She stood for a moment, staring at the houses, and then started running to the nearest grocery store, hoping they wouldn’t have sold out of everything she’d need.

 

***

 

She made everything from scratch. She knew, of course, that she could have just bought a ready-made house from the candy store, but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t have a lot of money to spend, but she did have time, and love. And so she got up in the middle of night, slipping out between the body-warm silk sheets – pushing a pillow into Trish’s arms so she wouldn’t notice she’d gone – and snuck into the kitchen, and started baking.

Unfortunately, Jessica’s superpowers didn’t extend to being super-awesome at making and decorating gingerbread houses. The gingerbread itself turned out all right, but she couldn’t get the roof to stay up – it caved it under its own weight, making the place look more like a gingerbread ruin. The two little gingerbread women she’d made to represent her and Trish were misshapen and their faces were smudged. Jess remembered that, before, Trish had done all the delicate work of cutting out the shapes and piping on the decorations – she’d mainly done the grunt work of mixing ingredients and passing over the candies. Oh well, too late to turn back now, she’d just have to make the best of it. She stuck on as many candies as she could, threw over a whole load of powdered sugar, and stood back to look at it.

A half-collapsed gingerbread house, covered in a mis-matched assortment of candies, with two vaguely people-shaped gingerbread lumps propped up in front. It didn’t look much like the ones she’d seen in the candy store window. Or like the one they’d made for the magazine photoshoot. Jess ran her fingers through her hair and tugged on it, grimacing in disappointment. After all that effort…

‘Hey, Jess, what you doing?’ A sleepy voice from behind her, and she looked round to see Trish in her designer lacy nightwear, leaning against the doorway. Trish always looked stunning, even with bed-head and no makeup, and sleep crusting her eyes.

‘I, um…’ Jess started saying, and then Trish saw the gingerbread house, and she lit up light a Christmas tree.

‘Jess,’ she said, ‘did you make that… for me?’

Jess nodded, her hand still tangled in her own hair. ‘Yeah – I made it for you. But it didn’t turn out like I planned. Nothing ever does.’

Trish gently pulled her hand away from her head and held it in her own, stroking the palm with her thumb.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said with a sigh, and wiped her eye with her other hand. She leaned her head against Jessica’s shoulder.

‘You’re a liar,’ said Jess. ‘It’s not beautiful. But it is yours.’

Trish sighed. ‘When do we get to eat it?’ she asked, quietly.

‘Whenever you want. It’s not like it’s worth keeping as a decoration.’

Trish reached out, and picked up one of the gingerbread women. ‘Is this me?’ she asked, seeing the strands of yellow-colored frosting piped messily over the head to try and look like blonde hair.

‘Yeah, that one’s meant to be you. The one with the black licorice hair is me.’

Trish put down her gingerbread alter ego and picked up the other gingerbread woman. ‘You look delicious,’ she said.

‘Bite me,’ said Jess, and they both giggled. Then Trish lifted the gingerbread Jess to her mouth, and took a large bite, while Jess tried not to stare at her lips.

‘Mmmm, you taste really good,’ said Trish, with her mouth full. ‘Here, have some.’ She held out the gingerbread Jessica to the real one.

‘Nah, I think I’ll eat you instead,’ said Jessica, and picked up the gingerbread Trish. ‘Seems appropriate.’

Still holding hands, they ate the two gingerbread figures, and Jess watched Trish while trying not to look like she was watching her, but then Trish kept looking at her and catching her eye and they kept blushing and glancing away and then doing the whole thing again until they were just standing in the kitchen, hands linked, sugar and spice on their lips, gazing at each other.

‘Merry Christmas,’ said Jess, very quietly.

‘You too,’ said Trish. ‘And thank you. This is…’ her voice trailed away, and she blushed again.

‘You have sugar round your mouth,’ said Jess.

‘So do you.’

They stood gazing for a moment longer, and then, finally, they both moved in to kiss the sugar from each other’s lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it!  
> Comments very welcome.


End file.
